Velázquez: Painting and the King
Lecture
In this talk, Giles Knox examines the development of Velázquez’s spectacularly free brushwork, as well as the possible role played by the king in encouraging the artist along this extraordinary path.
From his mid-twenties until his death at age 61, Velázquez worked as court painter to King Philip IV of Spain. During these years the artist’s manner of painting underwent a remarkable change, from the densely painted, firm forms of the 1620s (as in the Meadows Museum’s early portrait of Philip IV) to the lightly touched, feathery brushstrokes of the 1640s (as in the Fraga Philip, on loan from The Frick Collection and the subject of this fall’s Masterpiece in Residence exhibition) where solidity of form becomes subservient to the delicate play of the brush.
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